TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• The Swell Season's official site
• "Romance Fades, Partnership Endures"
• "Live from The Artists Den: The Swell Season"
• "All's Well That Ends Swell"

E-mail a friend

Musical duo performs Low Rising from their new CD. (2:56)
 

Full Interview (14:15)
 

Tavis: In 2007, musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova teamed up for what was supposed to be just a small, independent film called "Once," a project which ended up becoming an Oscar-winning hit. In addition to starring in the film, the duo took home the Oscar that year for best original song.

They are out now with a much-talked-about new CD called "Strict Joy" under the band name The Swell Season. Before we get to that, from the Grammy-nominated "Once" soundtrack, here they are performing "When Your Mind's Made Up."

[Clip]

Tavis: Marketa, nice to meet you.

Marketa Irglova: Nice to meet you.

Tavis: And Glen, nice to have you on as well.

Glen Hansard: Thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: I tried to just give a little taste of this Disneyland sort of story. You come together for a little, small project and all this Oscar madness happens. Take me back a few years ago and how all this - tell me how all this came to be.

Hansard: Well, my friend John Carney, he used to play bass in my band, had been playing with the idea for many years of this - he wanted to make a busker film, which was roughly, I suppose, based around my experience because I was a busker before I met John, and had come to me a few times and interviewed me in a very relaxed way, like having a cup of tea he'd be like, "So tell me a little bit more about busking, what would your average day be like?"

I would tell him, I would give him anecdotal stuff, and he wrote a script that he then went and got some interest in from local people and he had Killian Murphy, this very famous Irish actor, who was going to play the part, and that was kind of his ace, because this actor is a big deal in Ireland.

So the project grew legs and he was looking to cast - he got to the point where he was casting and he wanted me to write songs for him, which was great. I was very happy. He was looking for an Eastern European piano player. She wanted to - he needed a girl about 35 years old, and I knew Mar, I knew Mar from being in Czech Republic, I knew Mar's parents, and I said, "I know a girl," and myself and Mar have been playing together a lot, playing gigs and stuff in Czech.

So I know a girl who could possibly fit the bill but she's only 17, but she's brilliant. John was like, "Well, let me see her," and so myself and Mar organized a gig we played in Ireland, and he came to see us and he cast Mar as the female in this film.

So he had Killian and he had Mar, and everything was moving ahead, and I think he'd like, I think he had a million dollars, someone was going to give him a million dollars to make this film. Then, to make a long story short, Killian pulled out about a month before we started shooting, which destroyed the project because the money got pulled.

Of course, the producers weren't interested anymore because Killian being the star. So John then had to kind of quickly rethink the whole situation and was so happy with the script he had and was so happy with the songs and was so happy with Mar that we had to rethink. And he said, "Why don't you play? It just seems obvious that you play, because your connection with Mar is quite real and these songs were written with Mar, so why don't we just -" it almost was like he said it's almost like a blessing, weirdly. Why don't you come in and play the role? I guess I panicked with the idea for about five minutes.

Tavis: (Laughs) I was about to ask, you weren't intimidated by that? You have a huge star - that's like me feeling in for Denzel or something. (Laughter) You didn't have any intimidation about this at all?

Hansard: No, I did, I did. Honestly, I was freaked out and I just talked - like, I don't know if I can do this, I don't want to let him down. My biggest concern was letting him down.

So I agreed to do it. Mar actually encouraged me to do it. She said it'd be a lot easier to act with someone I know rather than someone I don't. So we went and we made "Once," and we had to find money. John borrowed 120,000 euro, part from the Arts Council in Ireland and part from a few friends that he knew, and we made "Once" in three weeks on two handicams.

We didn't get any licenses, we shot it all illegally. (Laughter) The whole thing happened in this very simple way. Seventeen days of shooting in Grafton Street in January. It was freezing cold. The script was basically very organic in that it was happening as we were going. John had a very clear idea of what we wanted to do but he was letting us improvise, and what ended up happening was that lovely thing where necessity made the film.

We only had the - because everyone was working for free, and we only had the crew for X amount of time. Everybody just pulled together, and it was one of those great, harmonious things that happened where the film ended up being this beautiful, simple thing as a result of everyone's energy.

Tavis: I've been trying to tell these guys for six years now if they work for free it could be a lot more harmonious. (Laughter) We'd get a lot more done, might win some awards around here, if they'd only work for free. I haven't convinced them of that as yet.

Since he calls you Mar, Mar, what do you make of the fact that you get recommended by your friend and all this just opens up for you?

Irglova: I feel blessed, honestly, because I never grew up with an idea of being a professional musician, or for that to be something I do for a living. When Glen walked into my life and kind of invited me to share the stage with him, already that was amazing for me and I used to kind of - at the time, even when I made the film, I was still in school.

So for me, any excuse to get out of school and play music was just brilliant. So I used to feel so grateful and fortunate for the fact that I can play music and travel with Glen. Then when the whole film happened and all the success, it just feels - I definitely think that there's got to be some amount of magic involved, otherwise it couldn't have happened because it was so fortunate and I feel really, really blessed and grateful for the way things have gone.

Tavis: That's why I said Disneyland. It came together like a magical story.

Irglova: Absolutely.

Tavis: Where's your award? Where do you keep it?

Irglova: We actually got our parents over for the Oscars and they were leaving the day after the ceremony and just took the Oscars with them. (Laughter)

Tavis: So you win it one day and your parents take it home the next day.

Irglova: Exactly, yeah.

Hansard: Yeah, we got to have them in the hotel room for one night.

Tavis: Tell me about this new project, The Swell Season. First of all, the name of the group that you front, The Swell Season, where'd you get that name from?

Hansard: It's a Czech writer, Josef Skvorecky, who wrote this amazing book called "The Swell Season" that we were both reading when we recorded these songs, and it was just Mar wrote this beautiful instrumental piece for the record and I remember we were both reading the book and whenever I wasn't reading it she'd pick it up and she'd read it. We were kind of reading it between us.

So we named that piece of music "The Swell Season," and then it just sort of seemed to make sense to name the record "The Swell Season." Then when it came time to go out and tour after "Once" and everything, we kind of thought well, maybe it's not so - I just didn't feel so comfortable as going out as Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, it just sort of felt a bit - I don't know why. It probably made more sense in a lot of ways.

So we decided to call the band The Swell Season, so I guess it's kind of now a project band or for me, certainly, I was in a band called The Frames for a long time and now this band is like a new thing.

Tavis: Other than the fact that you love the book, does that, those three words, The Swell Season, does that say anything to you?

Hansard: Oh, yeah.

Tavis: Should it say anything to us as fans?

Hansard: Yeah. Well, actually, for me, like Mar just said there, it's been an amazing season, certainly in my life it's been an incredible - from the moment this - of meeting Mar to this has been - it's been an amazing - and it's almost like sometimes you invite someone into your life and without realizing it they open the pathway that you were looking.

I was in a band for 17 years, struggling, trying to get my band name out there, trying to work, trying to get things happening. Then when I met Mar, she has this incredible sense of just ease, everything about her. She's not looking for it. If you think about the idea of the muse or think about the idea of the precious muse comes, it's a shy thing.

Fame, this whole idea of success, success is like a shy bird. It won't come to you if you chase it. You can work for it, but when you're running after it it's just going, going away.

Mar kind of came into - when Mar came into my life she had such a stillness about her that the fortune or the sense of muse just came right down and landed right there between us, and I feel very much like that was an incredible turning point in my life. So it's very much a swell season.

Tavis: Tell me about the project itself.

Irglova: Well, what's really nice about it was that after the success of "Once" we were playing much bigger rooms than we played before, and we were trying to make - we felt like we needed the gig to be more dynamic therefore.

So we thought of bringing some more people, musicians on board with us and then it just seemed to make perfect sense to why not bring the boys from The Frames, which was Glen's band.

So we all came together on this record because up until then it's been kind of separate projects, The Frames and me and Glen playing together, and this record is kind of the combination of the two, which for me is a nice thing because it brings more dynamic to it, and I think The Frames are just brilliant musicians.

As well, we went into a studio that we've never been before, so it was a new experience. Peter Kadas (sp), who recorded the album, just got it immediately. What was the nicest thing about it for me was that when we went into the studio, he lives in this big house in Connecticut, Bridgeport, and half of the house he lives in and the other one is the studio, and there's a big kitchen.

For me, that was amazing because I love cooking and I just went into the kitchen every night and cooked dinner for everybody, and for me that was a nice way of making the experience kind of like - I felt at home then.

Hansard: You can hear that on the record. Mar's cooking is amazing, so we -

Tavis: You can hear her cooking on the record? (Laughter)

Hansard: You can hear it. It's in the music. (Laughter) It just gives everything sort of sense of groundedness.

Tavis: I want to - why don't you grab that stick right quick, Glen, I'm going to have you - I'm going to say goodnight in just a second and have you guys play us out with something in just a second. Before I do that, though, I want to come back right quick to something you said a minute ago. You said you were playing much larger houses, which doesn't surprise me; you expect that after you have that kind of success.

Did you feel like you were missing something, though? There's something that I value about the intimacy that we're having right now, and of course you can choose whatever gigs you want to play in terms of venue. But after you get that kind of success and it comes so quickly, did you feel like you were losing a part of yourself, that you were losing that intimate relationship with your core fan base, or am I off-base here?

Irglova: No, it was more the fact that - because for me Glen is very dynamic in the way he performs, and yet when I play with him it's almost like he gets an opportunity to play more of the intimate songs, which I love playing with him. But I felt like - or it felt that we had an opportunity to broaden the palette of having the opportunity to play as many intimate songs as we wanted to, but also to have Glen the opportunity to go and be more dynamic.

Tavis: So you had the best of both worlds, then.

Irglova: Exactly, yes.

Tavis: I got it.

Hansard: For me, for so long I got - I was playing to a hundred people in a club for a long time, (laughter) so it was a -

Tavis: It was a big deal for you, huh?

Hansard: It was a real joy, yeah, yeah, I was ready for it.

Tavis: Well, I ain't got a hundred folk here today, but I will let you play us out. I'm going to say goodbye. Tell me what you're going to play first and then I'll say goodbye and let you play.

Hansard: We'll play a song called "Low Rising."

Tavis: "Low Rising."

Hansard: Yeah.

Tavis: All right, so first of all, thanks for coming on.

Hansard: Thank you.

Tavis: The new project from the two, Glen and Marketa, The Swell Season, go pick it up, add it to your collection. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. You can access our radio podcast through our website at PBS.org. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.

[Begin live performance]